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Wednesday, December 31, 2014

In the spirit of celebrating the coming New Year, I invite you to try this simple 3-step process to help set your intentions and spark a year of joyful creative living in 2015.

Grab some colored pens or pencils (I love writing with colorful felt-tip markers! ) and a blank piece of paper or, better yet, a beautiful journal you haven't been able to bring yourself to write in yet because you don't know where to start. Click here to download the prompts in printable form below if you'd like.

Ready? Let yourself answer the following questions quickly and intuitively without overthinking them. Your first answers are usually your best and most true.

#1 ~ Give Yourself Credit ~

~ What creative projects, pursuits and experiences did I enjoy most in 2014?
~ What helped give me permission to enjoy these creative experiences?
~ What worked well when it came to living a creative life last year?

#2 ~ Give Yourself Ideas ~

~ Which creative projects, pursuits and experiences would I like to continue in 2015?
~ Which new creative projects, pursuits and experiences would I love to explore in 2015?
~ What's one small way I can experience creative joy every day in the coming year?

#3 ~ Give Yourself Permission ~

~ Where can I find compassionate support to help me make time and space for my creativity? (Think friends, groups, classes, coaching, etc...)
~ How can I practicing giving myself permission to enjoy creative experiences more often?
~ What's one loving way I can allow myself to experience more creative joy than ever in the coming year?

Here's to living the creative life in 2015! May your year be filled with many wonderful Creative Oasis moments, laughter, love and light!

I won a "Gold" award (for a year-long challenge) and a "Hot Shot" award (for consistently showing up to the gym (Garage Fitness) at 6 am three times a week with very few exceptions) that I get to add to the "Bad Ass" awards I've won in previous years. What can I say? I love to work out and I’m grateful I’m wired that
way!

To celebrate my birthday I saw Fleetwood Mac in concert yet again and let me tell you, they are back and better than ever!

They were all wonderful...energized...in good voice and seemed to be having a blast!

Seeing one of my musical idols, Stevie Nicks, look and sound so good at age 67, doing what she most loves to do, was absolutely inspiring!

Eleanor Roosevelt's wise words also inspire me to keep living a creative life and embracing my life as a work of art.

I believe your life is your greatest creative project no matter what your age and I look forward to embracing every moment of the beautiful non-linear
path I’m on for decades to come.

I hope you’ll continue to join me!

If you've been contemplating one-on-one creative coaching with me, why not let 2015 be the year you live the creative life you've been dreaming of? Drop me a line hereso we can chat about the possibilities.

Until next time, all the best from my "Celebrating 50" Creative Oasis,

Jill

Jill Allison Bryan

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book, "Permission to Be Creative 101" please join me by clicking here.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

How are the holidays treating you so far? More importantly, how are you treating yourself?

I'm enjoying a rather smooth transition into the Christmas season. Not to toot my own horn, but I have to admit Create the Christmas of Your Dreams seems to be major reason for this!

Here are a few ideas that are helping me and the lovely members of our CTCOYD support group the most:

~ Any project, plan or party can be broken down into small, doable steps ~ or as I like to call them this time of year, Merry Little Movements.

Imagine my delight in realizing one Christmas project in particular could easily be divided into more than a dozen small steps. So long overwhelm ~ hello creative joy!

~ Enough really is enough.

For example, I gave myself a decorating deadline.That meant any holiday decorating I intended to do needed to be finished by Sunday, even if that meant not putting out every single decoration I own. And you know what? It was not only enough...it was plenty!

~ Creative joy can be experienced in small little burst of creative play.

Five or ten minutes coloring in a holiday mandala, creating a Christmas card or digitally enhancing a photo sparks creative satisfaction that lasts for hours. Here's a pinterest project using rolled magazine pages I'm creating during some of my brief of Christmas Oasis Moments.

~ Permission to embrace what's most important and release the rest.

Rather than show up to a holiday gathering feeling frazzled and fatigued because I felt the need to create some gourmet dish from scratch along with everything else I had going that day, I chose to show up rested and ready to party with a store bought appetizer and a smile.

~ Good self-care is not optional ~ it's essential.

With the social invitations rolling in, the pressure to finish shopping mounting, not to mention "end-of-year-everything," it's easy to tell ourselves we simply don't have time.

That's why it's so nice to be part of a group that knows the value of taking good care of ourselves, especially during the time of year we're often running on too little sleep, too many treats while dodging the omnipresent cold and flu bugs.

~ Good self-care is easier than you might think.

Something has simple as using some nice, rich hand cream, taking a walk around the block or enjoying a few deep breaths and stretches can revitalize you and keep you going strong throughout the holidays.

I invite you to use the recipe above with your choice of ingredients from the list below to create a dreamy Christmas of your own!

Until next time, all the best from my Dreamy Christmas Oasis to yours,

Jill

Jill Allison Bryan

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

The purpose of the challenge is to help people realize that it doesn't take a lot of time to be happy.

As a result of #100HappyDays I'm focused on seeing something good in my life at least once a day. Even the simplest things like a fluffed up bird sitting in a tree or the fact that tasty orange cuties are in season bring me happiness. Focusing on what brings joy to my life, even for the few moments it takes to snap a photo and post it, also brings me peace.

This aligns so nicely with my philosophy that even small amounts of time spend enjoying your Creative Oasis (whatever makes your heart sing and time fly) is time well-spent!

This is the time of year we often hear the message "Peace on earth ~ good will toward men." Ironically, it's also the time of year that can stress us out so much we end up spending much of the time feeling quite the opposite of peaceful!

So, what can we do about that? How can we experience more feelings of peace during the Christmas holidays?

When we make our own self-care a priority that helps us handle all of the relationships and responsibilities in our lives with more grace, ease and joy. This in turn helps the people in our lives to also experience more happiness, grace and peace. And so on...and so on...and so on. (If you're of a certain age please pardon the shampoo commercial reference.)

As the Christmas season begins, I invite you to choose an easy-to-do, soul-satisfying, peace-inducing creative challenge of your own. Here are a few ideas to help you begin...

I wish you many peaceful moments and a season filled with lots of love, laughter and light ~ especially the kind that makes your heart shine like a big ol' peace sign!

All the best from my Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

Jill Allison Bryan

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

P.S. ~ When I began playing with words to add to my peace sign photo for this post, I was delighted to realize that the "earth and heart" are anagrams. This felt like a special heemeesheemee to me. (*Heemeesheemee ~ my word for a serendipitous occurrence.)

Monday, December 1, 2014

Like you, I’ve been barraged with emails and ads for Black Friday
and Cyber Monday...for doorbusters and price slashers and midnight madness.

Sound more like horror films than the beginning of the
Christmas season, doesn’t it?

If you’re already over the over-the-top commercialism and stress
the holidays can bring, I invite you to join me for “Create the Christmas ofYour Dreams” ~ a creative teleclass and support group designed to help you
embrace holiday happiness, creative joy and good self-care this season. (*Note: Registration closes Wednesday 12/3/14 at 11am central)

This class if for you…

~ If using your creativity more than your credit cards sounds like a good idea.

~ If you’d like to make at least one handmade Christmas gift
or card this season. (Perhaps one of the approximately 738 you have on your pinterest boards?)

~ If you wish you could release the need to meet other
people’s holiday expectations. (Hint: Martha Stewart is not my role model!)

~ If you’d like permission to enjoy some good self-care, even
when there’s so much else to do.

(BTW - the top three self-care contenders from my
holiday survey were meditation, walking and massage and we'll be discussing ways to weave those into your schedule too.)

~ If you look forward to doing some holiday baking and want
to feel that using premade cookie dough & pie crusts is not a punishable
holiday crime this is the place for you!

Once a week beginning this Wednesday, December third, we’ll
meet up by phone to enjoy some creative prompts and play and I’ll share simple
ways to experience a Christmas season that feels the way you’d like it to feel.

Giving yourself the gift of just one hour of Creative Oasis
“me-time” for the next three weeks will help you feel energized and joyful rather
than Grinchy & stressed out this month.

For about the price of a mani/pedi ($49.94) you’ll enjoy three
one-hour phone sessions, including a packet of interactive creative sheets for
each call, lovely e-mail follow-ups.

Just click here to register and I’ll send your
first creative packet right away. I’ll even send you the recording of the
“Warm-Up” call we had before Thanksgiving if you’d like to get started before
our call this Wednesday.

I look forward to sharing this special time with you. I know
that together we can hit shift from feeling like “The Nightmare Before
Christmas” to “It’s a Wonderful Life!”

All the best from my “let’s all take a nice deep breath”
Christmas Creative Oasis to yours,

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

So, yes...I had my mind blown (in a good way) last weekend at the "David Bowie Is" exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

Experiencing the exhibit ~ a retrospective of Bowie's career ~ felt a bit like swimming through a magical underwater sea of sounds and sights...or perhaps better to say like floating through an intergalactic dream filled with curious, colorful creations while listening to some of my favorite songs of all time.

Actually, neither of those descriptions does the experience justice.

Perhaps I should just stick with I had my mind blow ~ in the best way imaginable ~ while walking through a multi-media time capsule overflowing with layer upon layer of the wildly imaginative and ground-breaking songs, videos, photographs, sketches, fashion, sculptures, hopes, films and dreams of David Bowie.

Yep...that sounds about right.

This was a deluxe "exposure" experience of the first degree. A chance to step away from my own creative passions, pursuits and dreams and let someone else's creativity wash over me and enjoy the inspiring high of simply soaking it all in.

The experience left me with an ultra-energized feeling of creative possibility...as if I could do, create, share anything I could dream up...as if I could envision, embrace and be anyone I wanted to be...no matter how crazy or out there that might seem to anyone else.

Which, of course, is always true to some degree...but I just needed to be reminded of it. Don't we all?

Since taking a trip to see a once-in-a-lifetime exhibit that will travel to fewer than a dozen cities around the world doesn't happen every day, how can we have our minds blown closer to home?

A few thoughts come to mind (along with some extremely random examples)...

#1 ~ Movies...a few personal favorites include Koyannisqatsi, Inception, Midnight in Paris, The Prestige (in which David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla), The Illusionist, What the Bleep Do We Know, The Zero Theorem, Brazil, Twelve Monkeys, Being John Malkovich and The Wizard of Oz. (Come on...admit it...the first time you saw the Emerald City you're mind was blown just a little, wasn't it?)

#2 ~ Books...Almost anything by Tom Robbins (including his recent memoir Tibetan Peach Pie) or Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood, Ishmael, Naked Lunch, A Wrinkle In Time and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (two of my childhood favorites, I still love!)

#3 ~ Music... Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, Pink Floyd (pair Dark Side of the Moon with a viewing of The Wizard of Oz for an exceptionally mind blowing effect), the Beatles (Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the White Album perhaps) ~ headphones and incense optional and, of course, David Bowie.

Add to this short list your choice of live music (you haven't lived until you've witnessed Sir Paul McCartney perform Live and Let Die complete with pyrotechnics), performance art (Cirque du Soleil anyone?), theater, museums, planetariums, arboretums...spectacular natural settings and manmade places (a village of Earthships just outside Taos, New Mexico), even a TV show (Cosmos comes to mind) and you start to feel the tremendous potential for having your mind pleasantly blown in a gazillion different ways.

Whether or not these experiences such as these blow your mind, hopefully they'll at least give you a fresh perspective and inspire you to release a few limiting beliefs about what you can and can't do...even if only 5% more than usual.

I'll leave you with a small question and creative challenge...what's one way you might enjoy an experience that will blow away preconceived notions and open your mind to new creative possibilities in the coming week?

All the best from my reenergized Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

www.creativeoasiscoaching.com

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

No matter how stressed out, overwhelmed or in a funk I may feel...when I remember to be grateful for something or someone in my life I instantly feel better.

Even if it's just 2% better that's usually enough to swing me around to a more positive way of thinking and my attitude starts to shift.

There's a lot of talk about gratitude this time of year with Thanksgiving just around the corner and that suits me just fine. Can we ever put too much focus on being thankful? I don't think so!

That's me in Breckenridge, Colorado during a beautiful hike with my mom and dad last summer. When I look at this photo feelings of gratitude come flooding over me.

Instantly I'm grateful for so much!

~ Spending special time with my awesome mom and dad

~ Calling Breckenridge, Colorado my home away from home for over 15 years now

~ Having the strength, health and desire to hike

~ Appreciating the majestic beauty of nature

~ Hiking boots that have served me well for years and year

Here's a creative way to tap into your own gratitude quickly and easily the next time you're feeling wound up, bummed out or knocked down by life.

Spark Gratitude with a Favorite Photo and Simple Creative Play

#1 ~ Find a favorite photo.

#2 ~ Set a timer for one minute and write down as many things as you can think of that you're grateful for inspired by the picture you chose.

#3 ~ Take a nice deep breath and really let the words you wrote sink in and allow yourself to truly feel the gratitude throughout your mind, body and spirit.

#4 ~ Enjoy some additional creative delight: Set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes and let yourself play with some free-form creative fun inspired by your photo, your words and your feelings of gratitude. For instance, you might create a page in your visual journal, write a poem, doodle or enjoy some other creative activity. Pick something that sounds fun, easy and doable!

I hope you enjoy trying out this creative prompt and join me in embracing this season of thanks!

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

Friday, November 14, 2014

(perhaps one of the 867 Christmas projects you have pinned to your Pinterest boards?)

~ You think it might be nice to use your creativity more than your credit cards this season

You'd like to feel energized and joyful rather than

Grinchy and stressed out during the month of December

~ You'd love to create special holiday memories that you and your family will cherish

~ You want to experience what’s most important to you rather than get swept up in the holiday hype

You wish you could release the need to meet other people’s expectations

(Example: you believe using pre-made pie crust is not a crime)

~ You'd like to embrace simplicity rather than giving into the "more is better" mindset

You'd love the gentle support of a group of women with the same Christmas wishes as you

If you can relate to any of this, I hope you'll join me for Create the Christmas of Your Dreams.

What is Create the Christmas of Your Dreams?

A 3-week teleclass and support group

to help you embrace holiday happiness, creative joy and good self-care this seasonWhat does Create the Christmas of Your Dreams include?

~ 3 weekly calls with beautiful e-mail follow-ups(all calls will be recorded and shared for those unable to attend live)~ Enlightening creative prompts to help you easily and intuitively choose the Christmas experiences you most want~ Printable interactive fun sheets~ Easy and fun dive-right-in creative activities~ Simple, low-pressure ways to help you enjoy your favorite holiday experiences~ Permission to practice good self-care ~ Gentle accountability and support from a compassionate group of women who'll be creating the Christmas of their dreams too

~ A private Facebook group for additional support and sharing (this is an optional bonus for those who like the idea of having a way to communicate and support each other throughout the week in addition to our calls)

If this sounds good, click the button below to quickly and easily register and give yourself one of the nicest Christmas gifts ever.Our first call will be December 3, 20141 to 2pm (cst)

Special Early Bird Bonus!

Sign up for this special class by midnight Wednesday, November 26, 2014 and you'll receive a bonus one-on-one 15-minute creative coaching session during the month of December. (This is a special offer worth $25 and only available to members of the Create the Christmas of Your Dreams support group.)

You might be thinking, "Jill, this sounds really good, but..."

~ I'll be too busy during the holidays. This one hour a week will help make the other 167 hours so much more pleasurable and peaceful. And 3 hours of class time averages out to less than 10 minutes per day! As I love to remind my clients, 10 minutes is less than 1% of your day. Don't you deserve something that energizes and delights you for at least 1% of your day – especially during the holidays? Math may not be my strong suite, but I have to hand it to myself in this instance. :)

~ I shouldn't be spending money on myself now. For the price of a mani/pedi you'll enjoy three weeks of creative experiences, compassionate support and a peaceful perspective on an otherwise somewhat crazy season. Doesn't that seem like a reasonable gift to give yourself? Not to mention the fact that by showing yourself good self-care, you'll much less likely to be Grinchy during the holiday hustle and bustle...something your friends and family are sure to appreciate as well.

I'm truly looking forward to helping you Create the Christmas of your Dreams!

Ready to say yes to doing things differently this December?

Click the button below to join me.

If we haven't worked together yet, this is a great, affordable way to experience Creative Oasis Coaching with me. And if we have, welcome back! I'm excited to have you be a member of what I know will be an amazing group!

Remember, if you sign up for this special class by midnight Wednesday, November 26, 2014 and you'll receive a bonus one-on-one 15-minute creative coaching session during the month of December. (This is a special offer worth $25 and only available to members of the Create the Christmas of Your Dreams support group.)

Until next time, all the best from my sometimes crazy Creative Oasis to yours,

Jill

P.S. ~ If you enjoyed this post and would like to receive bite-size bonbons of creative inspiration like this in my Mid-Week Oasis Moments plus a free copy of my e-book "Permission to Be Creative 101" join me here: http://www.creativeoasiscoaching.com/newsletter.html.

This week I went back to one of my favorite pages in my Creative Oasis Journal and played with some digital editing tools to create a new look for it.

I revisited this page because it holds a message I need to hear again (and again) and thought maybe some of you could use the reminder as well.

"If your compassion does not include yourself it is incomplete." ~ Buddha

Do you ever find it easier to show compassion to your friends, family and even total strangers than to yourself? If so, you're note alone.

I invite you to consider using the quote above as your personal Creative Oasis Mantra for the coming week and practice some gentle self-compassion ~ even if it's only 5% more than you might usually.

Rather than continue to beat myself up because I hadn't created a brand new message for this Mid-Week Oasis Moment, I gave myself permission to visit my journal for inspiration and update an earlier MWOM to share with you. That's how I showed myself some compassion ~ now it's your turn.

To help you get started, here are a few compassionate questions to ponder:

~ What's one gentle way you might treat yourself with compassion this week?

~ What's one easy way you might use creativity to do so?

~ What's one small way you might give yourself permission to enjoy five or ten minutes of guilt-free creative play today?

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